A View From The Bridge Essay

There are moments of great tension in this play. Tracing the
developments of Eddies obsession, show how Miller creates and
builds up tension, particularly in the final part of Act 1.

How would the tension be shown dramatically?

'A View from the Bridge' is a play based on pride & justice and
Sicilian Honour. There is fine line between natural justice and that
that is provided by the law. The theme of 'Justice provided by the
law,' starts right at the beginning of the play with Alfieri's opening
speech. As a lawyer, he tells the watching audience of his experiences
with the people of Brooklyn, "After all, who have I dealt with in my
life? Longshoreman and their wives, and fathers and grandfathers,
compensation cases, evictions, family squabbles - the petty troubles
of the poorâ€¦" The perception of law and lawyers in Brooklyn is not
entirely friendly.

The people of Brooklyn prefer not to bother with the authorities at a
time of legal need. These people would much rather sought out their
problems by enforcing Natural Justice, they would deal with a
situation in their own way. The community of Brooklyn has its Sicilian
Honour, this is a community of people who are against law and order.
They find it unlucky to pass a lawyer on the street, in the eyes of
Brooklyn people, lawyers are connected with evil and disasters and
people would rather not get to close.

This play provides the watching audience with a lot of natural justice
from the main characters, Eddie, Marco and Beatrice when she
intervenes with Eddies and Catherine's relationship. The natural
justice with Eddie is with Marco and Rodolpho, Eddie here has taken
the law into his own hands and betraying Marco and Rodolpho by
informing immigration. This plays a major part of tension in the play.
By Eddie doing this, he rages Marco into wanting to kill Eddie. The
natural justice is then focussed on Marco as he kills Eddie, he is
mentally saying that this is personal, no cop or lawyer can sought out
what Eddie had done. Even though Eddie hasn't broken the law, Marco
does what he believes is right and takes the law into his own hands by
killing Eddie.

Arthur Miller based this book mostly on his own life experiences. His
parents were immigrants to the United States, and Miller himself
worked at New York's Brooklyn Harbour with lots of poor Italian
immigrant workers. He would watch each day several immigrant workers
be exploited and humiliated. These workers had no rights and would
never dare to stand up for themselves, as in return their bosses would
grass them up to the Immigration. Their owner would look after them
for as long as they were needed and would then leave them to fend for
themselves.

Miller wrote in his autobiography about a friend that had a dream,
Miller interpreted this dream as an indication that the man fancied
his niece. People refused to accept that there was any truth in this.
However you can see...

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